back in 'Nam...

Yes, let's rent one!

First night in Pho Quoc, gorgeous sunset from our villa on the beach.

When I was lying in the Vietnamese hospital, I was thinking 2 things. #1: What is that stain on the ceiling? #2 How the hell did I get here? On our 2nd day on Phu Quoc island, we got up and had little breakfast, sat around with Jen and Jay having some coffee. Then we decided to go for a quick little ride on the motorbikes and be back in time to catch Lauren and Kev as they got up for breakfast. Apparently there's a gorgeous beach on the other side of the island, but we never got that far. Vietnam is known for terrible motorcyclists. Like really terrible. In fact we were just talking about that when this chick who was about 12 years old drove straight out in front of us. O swerved to miss her and we crashed. Our wreck was so sicking to watch that Jen and Jay crashed behind us from the shock of it. As we got up and pieced ourselves together, I look at O and he's covered in blood. His legs were gushing blood. I can't handle the sight of flowing blood so I'm down for the count. Everyone rushes around me and thinks I've had a concussion or internal injuries or I'm in shock. I can't speak and am fighting not to pass out cold on the sidewalk, I just kept thinking how disgusting it looked. This woman came over and started pouring cologne on my arms which was bleeding. I couldn't feel a thing. Jen grabbed me, put me in a cab and we went straight to the nearest hospital. After an xray with an ultrasound machine because that's all they had, nothing is broken. The docs decide to hook me up to an IV. Well, it must have been their first time to ever use a needle because they destroy both hands while trying to get a vein. I later had massive bruises for weeks. This was so incredibly painful. O got really mad at the doc and on the 5th jab in my arm, he leans in the doc's face and says "ALL RIGHT YOU GOT ONE MORE TRY AND THEN WE'RE OUT OF HERE! ONE MORE! THAT'S IT!" Sure enough, that doc just needed a little pressure because he suddenly got it in. Later they come in to give me an injection of god-knows-what. I ask what it is and they say it's Ultatron. Jen said, "Wait, isn't that one of the Transformers?" We send him away and say I'm allergic. (Later, over beers, we had a good laugh about that part of the story.) The doctor was insistent that I needed to stay at the hospital overnight. There was no way in hell I was going to stay in a hospital that belonged in a horror movie. We stayed there a few hours while I went through a few IV bags. We were all beat up pretty bad, but things were really put in perspective when this French couple came in. They had been in a motorbike crash and the girl's leg was gashed straight through. I don't think the doctors knew what to do. O talked to the guy who was freaking out, asked if he needed anything. Found out the next flight off the island was in a few hours. Counting our blessings, we paid our bill and left quietly. The plan for this vacation was to just sit on the beach and drink some beers which is what we did, but we just weren't at the beach. Mostly hung out in our room or on the back patio with our friends, healing our wounds. It took several weeks for everything to completely heal, but we were so incredible lucky. I've got a scar on my arm, but O has got huge scars on his knees. I think he really likes it when someone asks what it's from so he can say "I got this back in 'Nam". Also, Forest Gump quotes never get old when you're in Vietnam.